The advantage is that whenever you are working within the calculation functions of FileMaker and see a list of TO’s to choose from, you can instantly tell exactly where in the Relationship Graph (RG) you are. This way you really have a series of bread crumbs in the naming convention. The design principle is very clear all layouts have their own ‘anchor’ table occurrence (on the left), and all related tables have specific table occurrences (TO’s) stretching out to the right. The second design rule for AB is in the naming convention. Every TO which is connected to the anchor, starts with the anchor’s name, and each succeeding TO receives the additional name of the TO’s to its left. Now there is the beautiful option of Anchor-Buoy (AB). AB has a number of things going for it. It has lines going everywhere, and a really impossible to follow dataflow (we have improved our technique since then). It is a common (mistaken) expectation of new developers, as I remember myself, that all the various tables need to be connected to each other (when in many cases they do not). This is why HS sometimes turns into a “spider web.” What started out as a simple database slowly grows over the years and if a person is not planning well or doesn’t understand the unique benefits of designing in FileMaker, it can turn into a complete mess. I should know as my original database (which still works by the way!), is a mess behind the scenes. HS has been around for a long time, and is perhaps the oldest and often original method for design. There are three primary models, or ways of arranging the data architecture in FileMaker Pro.
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